


The Human Heat

by disarm_d



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anger, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Blow Jobs, Imagined Steve/Natasha, M/M, Masturbation, Past Bruce/Natasha, Past Child Abuse, Past Domestic Violence, Victim Blaming, bruce banner is always angry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 11:28:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4099348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disarm_d/pseuds/disarm_d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Banner is always angry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Human Heat

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Human Heat by Sam Roberts Band. 
> 
> With great thanks to my betas [fitofpique](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fitofpique/pseuds/fitofpique) (for being an &expert) and [threeturn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/threeturn/pseuds/threeturn) (for always understanding, I cherish you).

_If you can hear this, then it means that there's no apocalypse._

 

Sometimes choosing to change into the other guy didn't make it any easier to hold off the involuntary transformations. It didn't make it harder either. The other guy was there when Bruce stumbled and twisted his ankle while walking down the sidewalk ( _Jesus,_ his hands clenching into fists), when the car alarm went off and woke him at four in the morning ( _What kind of fucking asshole doesn’t hear their own alarm going off, someone should smash that car into--_ ), when he came home to find his fridge door had been left ajar ( _Motherfucker_ ). 

He hadn’t changed into the other guy any of those times, but he could have. He kicked a dent into his fridge and now the door was always ajar, but that was with his human body. His human rage. 

The Hulk’s rage, his rage, they blended inside of his head. He was always angry.

He felt guilty about stealing the jet, but it turned out the other guy was a better pilot than Bruce was and he couldn’t figure out how to to start it up again. He called Tony, who came himself. 

“At least you took good care of her,” Tony said, wryly. The jet was salt-crusted after months of sitting in the ocean.

Bruce moved into Stark Tower because Tony said he needed help rebuilding his lab, but really it was because he hoped between the two of them they might find a cure for the other guy. They took blood samples, ran scans, tried to invent a machine that would be able to collect samples from the other guy. Tony thought the key was inventing a fast enough robot. Bruce wanted to focus on building unrippable restraints. 

In the end, Bruce called a halt to the experiments before they made any progress. He was worried they would fail to reject the null hypothesis: that the Hulk could not be extinguished. He didn’t want to take this all the way only to learn there would be nothing left of him without the other guy. 

\--

Tony was gone most of the time, and he wasn’t there when Steve showed up.

“I need to see him,” Steve said. 

“Sorry, man,” Bruce said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt. “What is – is there something I can help with?” Steve seemed like a man on a mission, but that was also how he looked striding to the cafeteria for food. 

“What do you know about biomechanical engineering?” 

“I mean.”

“Would you be able to remove a tracking device?” 

“Probably,” Bruce said. He put his glasses back on and rubbed the back of his neck. “But why do you think you’ve got a tracking device? That doesn’t seem like something S.H.I.E.L.D. would do. Well, yes it does. But do you have to remove it? Maybe we could redirect it. In case you ever needed…” Bruce trailed off. Steve looked like he hadn’t slept in days and, given that he could, in fact, go days without sleeping, that was concerning. His shirt was covered in blood, Bruce noticed for the first time. “Help,” Bruce finished awkwardly.

“Get your tools. Come with me,” Steve said. 

Bruce didn’t have tools, but he found some odds and ends in Tony’s lab and grabbed the first aid kit off the wall. He followed after Steve, who took them on a subway ride, then up to street level to catch a cab, out again, a different cab, a weaving walk for half an hour that ended them right back where they started, another cab ride, and finally down a manhole into a sewer. 

“If you’ve got a tracking device, they’ll still know where you are,” Bruce said as they climbed down. He had wanted to say something earlier, but Steve was being especially purposeful and it made it difficult to talk to him.

“Not me,” Steve said. 

They walked for long enough that Bruce’s feet started to ache. At first he thought that Steve was still working on subterfuge but he realized that Steve was looking for something. Bruce wished that he’d asked earlier if Natasha was involved with – whatever this was. He’d kept meaning to contact her, but it had felt like he’d waited too long, and then he truly had waited too long, and now it was obvious there was no way to salvage whatever might have been between them. He’d been hoping to avoid seeing her until the anger at being forced to turn into the other guy went away and he could think of the perfect thing to say, or, barring that: indefinitely.

“He said he’d wait,” Steve said as they circled back around the same bend for the fourth time. His voice was quiet but gained volume. “He said – Bucky, you said you’d wait!”

The sewers were dark, and Bruce didn’t register the shadow until it was right beside them. He startled badly and had to take several slow breaths to calm his heart rate. 

“This isn’t Stark,” said the shadow, who was actually a man.

“No?” Bruce said hesitantly when Steve didn’t answer. “Tony’s in Miami. I’m Bruce.”

The man’s face stayed blank. His dirty black hair was tangled and mostly covering his eyes. Somewhere behind them, water dripped steadily. A rat scurried along the wall. The ground rumbled as a subway train passed then went quiet again. The disparate noises came together into something of a conversation that Bruce felt like he had to wait out, even though no one was speaking. Steve stared intensely at the man – Bucky, Winter Soldier, Bruce remembered from the briefing that went out to the personal email addresses of the few of them that remained after Project Insight. Bucky stood very still. He looked almost catatonic, but he eventually lifted his arm, which Bruce realized belatedly meant it was time for him to get to work.

“Are they tracking us right now?” Bruce asked as he unscrewed the top panel of Bucky’s metal arm. It came apart easily; it was obviously designed for maintenance.

“The signal doesn’t reach underground,” Steve said.

“Really?” Bruce asked. 

“They upgraded,” Bucky said. “G4 network.”

“So they can only find you in places with cell service?” Bruce asked. It wasn’t that he was especially interested, but it seemed important to keep up a conversation while he poked around at the metal innards. The arm was fascinating as a technological achievement. Tony would have had a field day. Bruce felt a little guilty that he was here in his place. It helped stave off some of the irritation of being in a sewer. He thought he would get used to the smell, but it didn’t seem like that would happen any time soon. 

“And I carry a beacon.”

“What, _now_?” Bruce asked, looking up.

Nothing in Bucky’s facial expression changed, but the next time he blinked it had a distinctively sarcastic edge.

“Obviously not,” Steve said. 

Bruce wondered about that. He had found the tracking device fairly easily. It wasn’t hidden; all the mechanics were laid out clearly. Why would they make the metal arm so user friendly? But then Bruce realized that was the whole point. The Winter Soldier would carry the beacon voluntarily. Of course they expected him to obey.

“Done,” Bruce said, cutting the wire. He tried to hand the chip over to Bucky, who turned his head to Steve, so Bruce gave it to him instead. Steve crushed it in his hand before throwing it into the water. 

“Now what?” Bruce asked.

“Think Stark has an extra bedroom?”

Bucky’s mouth twisted. He didn’t say anything, but the protest was obvious. 

“I’m not staying in a sewer, and you’re coming with me, Sergeant.” Steve started walking down the tunnel without waiting for Bruce and Bucky to follow, but of course they did. 

This time they took just one cab back. When they got to the tower, Bucky walked off. Bruce looked at Steve, alarmed.

“He’s just checking the perimeter,” Steve said. He didn’t look concerned to see Bucky go. But then, they had found each other again after seventy years; what was a walk around the block compared to that?

“Why didn’t you take him back to the Avenger’s HQ?” Bruce asked.

“Don’t want S.H.I.E.L.D. involved. I’m trying to keep him off the radar.”

“You took him to Tony. Isn’t that the same thing? There are more cameras here than in a movie studio.”

“When you’re called up to bat, you can either sit it out or try to hit harder than anyone else. Stark hits hard.”

“Okay,” Bruce said. 

“Sam got us to New York. He’ll be here too, once he ties up a few things at home.”

Bucky finished his circle of the block and walked with them into the tower. It felt stranger to be there with them than to be in a sewer. The tower wasn’t home, but it was closer than anything else. It was difficult to imagine Steve and Bucky settling in for the night to watch _Synecdoche New York_ in the theatre room, which had been Bruce’s plan for the evening.

Instead, he helped them settle into one of the guest suites. Bucky stood in the corner of the room while Bruce showed them where the towels were. Truthfully, he had never been here before and was only able to find toothbrushes because his guess at opening the bathroom drawer was confirmed; they could have searched on their own, but he wanted to do something to help. Eventually he ran out of things to accidentally pretend to find on purpose and left them. 

“I’m just,” he motioned over his shoulder. “If you need me.”

Steve nodded and said in a low voice, “We’ll be fine.” He was a little bit rude for a house guest, but polite for a soldier. 

Bruce went to his room but couldn’t sleep, feeling irritated at being intruded upon and then mad at himself for his own irritation. He emailed Tony in addition to the text he had sent earlier, but then he realized that Tony really didn’t need to know which of the guest rooms Steve and Bucky were staying in and deleted the draft without sending it. 

Tony texted back after midnight and said his flight would get in at four the next afternoon. His texts were always unexpectedly short. He didn’t like talking on the phone either. He was something like a friend when he was physically in the same place as Bruce, and Bruce would never admit to the sting at how distant he felt the rest of the time. 

Half the time Bruce was concerned that people were talking about him every moment he wasn’t around, talking and plotting and figuring out how to lock him up. Building bigger and bigger bombs until finally they found something that would vaporize the green. The rest of the time, he thought that no one in the world ever thought of him once he left the room. He didn’t know which was worse. Switching between the two was exhausting. He tried to tell himself that he would feel better when Tony arrived, but it felt very far away.

He heard a noise: footsteps. Two sets of footsteps. It would be Steve and Bucky walking to the kitchen, maybe. He should have offered food. He realized abruptly that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but it would look awkward for him to follow after them, like he had been lying here waiting. 

His stomach twisted as he pictured them eating, furious that he hadn’t thought to eat first. Every part of his day had been ruined, from the work he had wanted to get done this afternoon to the leftover Pad Thai he had waiting in the fridge. He hoped they didn’t eat it. Then he remembered Bucky in the sewer, and who knew how long he had been there. The anger twisted into guilt, just like it always did, and then it would probably just be a matter of time before the guilt was swallowed up by fury. His back throbbed between his shoulder blades. A line of tension pulled from his kneecaps to his hips. 

He lay awake for a long time.

\--

Tony arrived and the tower grew exponentially louder. Steve was louder; Bucky was – not louder, but quiet in a loud way. Bruce’s head throbbed.

“We need to do a full diagnostic,” Tony said. “We need people.”

“You, Bruce,” Steve said, gesturing. “People.”

“Doctor people. I could have built that arm. Probably. I’m assuming. It doesn’t look that complicated.” He looked at Bucky. “Sorry, no offense. It’s shiny but it doesn’t really do anything. Why didn’t they try to integrate any weapons?”

 _He was the weapon_ , Bruce thought, but he maintained his silent lean, standing at the periphery of the room. He could tell this was heading toward an argument. His first instinct was to get as far away as possible, but he forced himself to wait it out.

Steve said, “Then what’s the–”

Tony cut him off. “The arm is stable. Right?” he asked Bucky. “You’re good? Bruce took a tinker and didn’t hear any ticking? No one was stupid enough to bring a live bomb into my home. Again.”

None of them responded, which Tony took as an affirmative.

“So we’re not worried about the arm. We’re worried about the brain. And I don’t know how much I’ve managed to dazzle you, but I’m not actually a brain surgeon.”

“He doesn’t need surgery,” Steve said.

“Doesn’t he? We know that? How they gave him the kill order and how to turn it off and we’re not even a little bit worried about leaving him alone with a knife?”

“He’s not going to do anything,” Steve said. 

“No?” Tony asked. “He’s sorry for the last three times he tried to kill you, he told you that.”

“He’s literally right there,” Bruce said quietly. Bucky stood with his arms loose at his sides. Bruce had no idea how to read the expression on his face.

“Who’s right there?” Tony asked. “Cap’s long lost BFF? The Winter Soldier? Some potentially murdery hybrid of the two?”

“If he was going to kill me, he would have done it already.”

“Hasn’t worked out great the last three times he’s tried. Maybe he’s just biding his time.”

Bruce was deeply uncomfortable having this discussion in front of Bucky. He could too easily imagine people having the same conversation about him, minus the part where someone steadfastly defended him. He looked at Bucky again and wished he could see inside of his brain. Although – maybe.

“We could scan him,” Bruce said. “See if there’s any activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex. We don’t know what kind of brainwashing they did, but those areas would have to be affected.”

Tony gave him a sharp look, appraising. Bruce knew Tony understood what he was saying, but Tony was thankfully tactful enough to hold his tongue. 

“I like it,” Tony said. “We can just do some imaging. Non-invasive,” he said to Steve.

“We can’t use an MRI,” Bruce said.

Tony nodded. “Because of the arm, right, of course. We can build something, though, something that can compute axial tomography.”

“Something that stimulates the brain. Magnetoencephalography without the magnets.”

“Fine,” Steve said. “But he needs lunch.” They walked out of the lab, leaving Bruce and Tony alone.

“I do like it,” Tony said, slower this time. “We do the scan to see if he’s a psychopath.”

“Not him,” Bruce said. “He didn’t – they. It’s just his brain.”

“Cap won’t like it.”

“If he wanted to like it, he wouldn’t have come here. I think he just wants help.”

“Well,” Tony said, snarkily chipper, “always glad to be of use.”

\--

It would take even Tony Stark some time to get enough parts to build a neuroimager. In the meantime, everyone settled into a version of normality. 

Bucky spent a lot of time patrolling the tower. Bruce got used to him doing a sweep of the lab and came to anticipate his periodic presence on the nights Bruce was working late.

“What are you looking for?” Bruce asked one night. Bucky made brief eye contact, obscured by the curtain of his hair, but didn’t respond. 

He was always silent, except when he was angry. He had nightmares and trashed his bedroom the third night they were there. Bruce came running down the hall but lingered outside the door until the sounds of crashing stopped. When he entered the room, it was dark and he couldn’t make out the wreckage, but it smelt like broken things -- the deceptively soft, dusty smell of furniture turned into sawdust.

“Hi, is it… okay?” Bruce asked, lingering in the doorway.

There was a beat and then Steve said, “Fine.”

“Can I turn on the light?”

Another beat and then, “Yes.”

Steve sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. Beside him, a lamp was jutting out of the drywall, like maybe he had ducked before it hit him. In the adjacent bathroom, there was the sound of the shower turning on.

“You okay?” Bruce asked. 

Steve nodded. He was shirtless and the movement of his ribcage made it seem like he was breathing quickly but any sounds were covered by that of the running water. He always had sharp cheekbones, but the anguish on his face made him look gaunt. 

“A-okay,” Steve said, composing his features. He looked stern now, more like Captain America. “He just had to let off steam.”

“Did he have a nightmare?” Bruce asked, sitting down on the floor beside Steve. He leaned against the wall and tried not to get caught watching Steve’s torso. The feathers from the torn duvet quivered. 

“Is it a nightmare when it actually happened?” Steve asked.

Bruce was quiet after that. He listened to the running water. The heaving of Steve’s chest gradually settled. The energy in the room was sharp like fluorescent lights in the dead of night, but the actual light from the remaining bedside lamp was muted. Bruce wondered if Steve and Bucky shared a bed, if either of them used a bed at all. Maybe they slept on the floor; he had heard of soldiers who did that. Maybe they didn’t sleep. It was hard to imagine Steve Rogers curled up under a duvet, but Bruce got distracted turning that image over and over in his head. He hadn’t realized he had lulled himself to sleep until Steve clasped him just above the knee. The dusty smell was like wet soil, maybe. Earth that had been unearthed during a rainfall. 

“We’re good here,” Steve said, kind and firm and clearly dismissive. Bruce realized the water had stopped running. Steve was sitting guard, making sure everything was safe for Bucky when he came back out. Bruce was intruding. He was embarrassed at how comfortable he had gotten in their wreckage, and went back to his own room, which smelt like nothing. Or it smelt enough like him that he noticed nothing. 

Bruce imagined what it would be like to have someone standing guard over him after he turned into the other guy. Would it make it easier to wake up naked in a strange place? He thought about that: Steve standing guard for him just like he’d done for Bucky, making sure no one saw Bruce until he was ready to face the world again. It was comforting. Bruce fell asleep without even trying. 

\--

Neither of them were around when Bruce went for breakfast in the morning, but there were already dirty bowls in the dishwasher when Bruce put his own dishes away. He’d lived with roommates in college but that was a long time ago, and he’d forgotten how it felt to share space with people, the unintentional intimacies that closeness revealed. The empty-except-the-crumbs box of cereal that had been placed back in the cupboard. Bruce tossed the whole thing in the recycling without taking out the plastic lining or flattening the cardboard. He took a deep breath, but anger always came quicker first thing in the morning.

It wasn’t really like having roommates who could be counted on for a late night beer. Bruce’s space had been taken over, only it wasn’t his space at all. He was the odd man out in a tower of men who should have died but instead came back to life. Bruce should have died as well. It’s just that he was the only one who hadn’t truly come back to life. 

Bruce didn’t see either of them again until later that night when he found Bucky at the table grimacing horribly. His jaw was clenched and for a moment Bruce thought he had a cyanide tooth and he was biting down, right there in the kitchen, but then he realized Bucky was just chewing. Bucky had a plate of kiwis in front of him.

“Not ripe?” Bruce asked. He took a bottle of water from the fridge. It was wasteful, but there was something about the ever-replenished row of bottles covering the bottom shelf of the fridge that Bruce couldn’t resist. Who had energy for restraint in this tower of indulgence?

“No,” Bucky said, his mouth twisted. He kept working his jaw like he was trying to crush every single seed between his teeth.

“You don’t have to finish,” Bruce said. He thought it came out kindly, but Bucky curled around his plate like Bruce had tried to snatch it from him.

“I like it,” Bucky said. 

“Cool,” Bruce said. He wondered how Tony was doing pulling together the parts needed for the neuroimager. He wondered what they should expect to find. Before all this started, Bruce would have said that Bucky didn’t seem like an assassin: nondescript sporty-grungy clothes, a watch that looked large on his wrist, the kind of stubble that guys at baseball games usually had – but now he realized he couldn’t really tell. Had Natasha looked like an assassin? Yes, usually, but that had been on purpose. 

If this was a ploy by Hydra, it was a complicated one. Bucky reached for another piece of kiwi.

“Why are you here?” Bruce asked before his brain had time to sort out if it was rude or not.

“I killed some people,” Bucky said. “Why are you here?”

Bruce blinked. “I did too.”

Bucky nodded. “Can you remember?”

“Can you?”

Bucky ate another bite of kiwi and took a long time to chew on all the seeds. “Sometimes I remember more than I’m supposed to. Sometimes I remember exactly what they wanted me to.”

“Are you going to kill anyone else?” Bruce asked. Steve would get mad if he found out Bruce had asked.

“Are you?” Bucky asked.

Bruce could feel his breath catch in the back of his throat. “I hope not.” 

Bucky nodded. He rolled a kiwi across the table and Bruce caught it under his palm. He held it under his hand, feeling the scratchy skin and the slight give of the fruit. Bucky used a knife to peel himself another kiwi, but it was a normal knife, just one from the kitchen. 

\--

Steve did nothing to telegraph their friendship except on the days when Bucky was agitated, when Steve always hurried to stand close to him. At first Bruce thought it was because Steve was ready for a fight, but he realized it was Steve’s way of making sure that if Bucky hurt anyone, it would be him. That must be comforting for Bucky, Bruce thought. Knowing that there was someone stronger in between him and an act of rage he could never take back.

Bruce tried to imagine mimicking Steve’s posture, but he couldn’t. The truth was that he always wanted his dad to hurt his mom. He wanted his dad to hurt anyone but him.

It was the same now. When he was the other guy, he would hurt anyone to protect himself. 

\--

Sam arrived five days after Steve. Bruce hadn't realized how tense Steve was until some of the strain lifted. Sam was funny and smart and obviously didn’t know what it was like to wake up in a pile of rubble with no idea what had happened or who he had hurt. Of course Steve would want him close. Steve hadn’t asked for Bruce’s help at all; Bruce had just been a less effective substitute for Tony.

Bucky spooked at Sam’s arrival, according to Steve. To Bruce, spooked looked like catatonic. Bucky only broke out of his freeze when one of Tony’s vacuuming bots got too close. After he’d finished pummeling it – the sound of metal on metal scratching like nails up the back of Bruce’s spine – he sat down again. 

“Do you want me to try to fix it?” Bruce asked as Steve walked by. He was hovering in the hallway outside the living room where he’d been mostly hidden from the action. He hadn’t gone in while Bucky was ripping apart the bot, and now he wondered if he should have. Steve had stood right there, watching over Bucky, the whole time. 

Steve didn’t answer, just came back with a dust pan and garbage bag and started to pick up the pieces. 

“Help me,” he said, pushing the bag into Bucky’s hand. Bucky hesitated but then he dropped to the floor beside Steve. He seemed calm now, kneeling next to Steve.

Bruce watched Steve and Bucky clean. Even though Bucky had clearly relaxed, Bruce still felt nervous, like maybe he should go somewhere more hidden, but he was trying to wait it out. Hiding made him angry; it didn’t fix anything. 

He didn’t notice at first that Sam had come to stand beside him. 

“Those bots are a little too cute. You know what I mean?” Sam said. “You’re not supposed to _like_ a vacuum cleaner.”

It took Bruce a minute to parse the words into a sentence, like Sam was talking to him from a distance much greater than the two feet separating them. Could Sam tell he was acting weird? Bruce said the first thing that came to mind to try to cover for it. “Do you think he’ll get mad at him?” he asked. 

“Bucky?” Sam asked.

“Steve. Bucky’s so – angry, all the time.”

“Wouldn’t it be a bit hypocritical for Steve to get mad at Bucky for being mad?” Sam asked. 

Bruce pressed his lips together.

“Would you get mad at a friend who was having trouble coping?” Sam asked.

“No, but that’s different. I don’t mind when other people are angry.” 

“I think you mind more than most people I’ve met,” Sam said. His voice was pleasant. Bruce’s stomach twisted. The other guy was roaring, but it was just background nonsense, nothing he had to pay attention to. The other guy would bat Sam right out of the sky like a bug.

“Do you want to go see how they’re doing?” Bruce asked. His voice was pleasant as well. Steve laughed at something while Bucky shook his head. The other guy would rip Sam’s metal wings like tissue paper, but he wasn’t here. Bruce was. 

He walked back into the room. Another robot was trying to take the broom away from Steve, beeping loudly at him.

“I’ve got it,” Steve said, but the robot just whirred, letting out a longer beep.

Bruce left them to it and went on a walk. New York wasn’t a good place to be angry so he tried to stay inside as much as possible, but sometimes the change of scenery helped.

He nearly bumped into Steve when he was coming back. The sun was just starting to set, and he’d been distracted looking up at the purpling sky. He might have thought that seeing a portal to another dimension would make a late-summer sunset seem ordinary, but there was still something captivating about the way the pink streaks cut through the full maroon clouds. 

“I thought it was you,” Steve said, unassuming as apple pie. As if he couldn’t recognize Bruce – or anyone else – from ten times the distance. Bruce knew about seeming unassuming. Steve did it for kind reasons though; he wasn’t trying to hide a monster.

“You good?” Steve asked. He was carrying several filled garbage bags.

“Is the trash chute broken?” Bruce asked.

Steve gave a self-deprecating grimace. “Couldn’t find that,” he said. “Probably should have looked harder. Also can’t find the dumpsters.”

“I think they’re in the basement,” Bruce said. It looked like Steve had won the fight with the other cleaning bot. 

Bruce couldn’t find the trash chute either, and at that point they were both too chagrined to ask for help so they took the elevator all the way down to the lowest level of the basement. They found several locked doors, a storage locker that held an almost alarming number of bicycles, and an armory. It was a significantly smaller armory than the one on the twenty-seventh floor, but the door wasn’t locked. Bruce wondered with some concern what was behind the doors that were actually locked.

They spent longer than they should have looking for the garbage room, but it was fun to follow Steve through the strange maze of Tony’s basement. Bruce imagined that Steve was his – his what? Steve was his captain. That had been true many times before, but this was inconsequential enough that it felt like a game: pushing doors open with gusto and speculating wildly about what Tony might keep under lock and key. 

Bruce was almost disappointed when they finally found the trashcans. He thought about it as he was lying in bed that night. Steve was a captain; it wasn’t just his code name. Bruce’s days of viewing the military with anything other than absolute terror were long past, but he mulled the idea over. Simple ideas seemed bigger in the dark. Steve was a captain. Steve was his captain. There was a protection that came along with that. Bruce was safe, even from the anger. No, when he was safe there was no anger. 

He thought of Steve in his uniform, Steve out of his uniform. Steve saying it was okay, Bruce just had to – he just had to open his mouth and. Steve’s hands in his hair. He would make sure Bruce was safe, Bruce just had to open his mouth and suck. He came into his palm, chewing on his index finger. 

When he woke in the morning, everyone had already eaten and the floor was empty. If there had been a mission briefing, Bruce had not been invited. He had to hold completely still to keep the anger from overflowing. He gritted his teeth and held his arms straight down at his sides, like one wrong move was all it would take to set free the fury. Eventually, he realized that stillness was not the same as safety and went to his room to do breathing exercises.

\--

It turned out they were going to pick up Natasha. 

Bruce ventured out of the lab for dinner and found Natasha and Clint sitting at the dining room table. Neither of them smiled when they saw him. At least when he was on a different continent he had an excuse to be out of contact; he was very aware of how bad it looked to be caught playing house in Tony’s tower.

“Hi,” Bruce said awkwardly. It was tense. It was almost unbearably tense. Bruce worried that he might change into the other guy out of sheer desperation, just to escape this horrible awkwardness. It took him longer than it should have to realize that Bucky was lurking in the far corner of the kitchen. 

That made it easier to breathe. Some of the tension was because of Bucky. Bruce felt relieved, then guilty, then irritated. Natasha and Bucky were just staring at each other. Someone needed to deal with whatever was happening. Where was Steve?

Natasha broke the silence by saying something in Russian that Bruce didn’t understand but that seemed to break the tension, especially when Bucky muttered something back. Bruce made his exit as quickly as possible and holed up in his room, trying to breath through the furious waves of anxiety that came from feeling _caught_ even though he hadn’t been hiding. He was so deep in his spiral that he didn’t realize the rest of the tower was in catastrophe until the whole thing was nearly done. 

The sound of gunshots drew him from his room. He saw Steve before he saw Bucky, who was crouched into a sniper’s squat at the window, hidden behind the couch. Bruce froze at the door when Steve lifted his hand at Bruce, _stop_.

“No one’s coming,” Steve said.

Bruce saw only the smallest hint of movement, and he didn’t realize Bucky had pulled the trigger until the shot rang out. 

“Stop,” Steve said, taking another step forward. Bucky had a smaller gun in his hand, and he looked away from his rifle long enough to point it at Steve until he stopped moving. 

“Who are you shooting at?” Steve asked. He sounded desperate. 

“They’ll take you too, you know,” Bucky said, looking back through the scope. “It’s not just me they want.”

“There’s no one down there,” Steve said. He looked over at Bruce. “Stark and Natasha cleared the area. The tower’s secure. Barton’s on the roof. He can’t see anything. _What are you shooting at?_ ”

Bucky didn’t respond. He fired the gun again and again until finally Steve lunged at him. Every muscle in Bruce’s body was rigid with tension. Steve could survive being shot but how many times? Bruce thought of running into the room to help, but he’d turn into the other guy if he was shot and that would help no one.

A struggle. The gun fired again. A loud clang: Steve throwing it against the wall. The drywall caved and the gun fell to the floor. Bruce tensed, but it didn’t fire again. He couldn’t see where the previous bullet went, but it wasn’t into Steve. Steve was fine; that’s what was important.

Bucky stood in ready position, hands up and curled. His eyes kept darting around.

“Stand down, soldier,” Steve said and eventually Bucky did.

The rest of the team filtered back. The last bullet had gone into Bucky’s thigh, it turned out; Steve seemed more upset about that than anything else.

“It’s not his fault,” Steve said while Bruce applied antiseptic. The bullet had been a through and through and already the leg had stopped bleeding. Bruce considered stitches, but Bucky clearly had accelerated healing. Maybe he’d give the paper stitches a try first. 

Natasha sat at the table and methodically unassembled the sniper rifle, checking the mechanisms. 

“He’s fine, is he?” Tony said. He and Steve were at the other end of the lab. Everyone could hear what they were saying. “He could have killed us. Or any number of other people, if that means more to you.”

“No one else got hurt,” Steve said. 

“This time,” Tony said.

Bruce taped together Bucky’s leg and wrapped a bandage around the whole thing before stepping back. He wondered if he should leave. 

“He’s my best friend,” Steve said.

“And isn’t that reason enough that the decision shouldn’t be up to you? You’re not thinking straight.”

Steve gestured toward the computer at the other end of the room. “This, coming from you. Maybe we _should_ talk about other people making decisions that endanger the team. And the entire world. Make any new harbingers of the apocalypse lately, Tony?”

“You can put the little guy in a big body, but you still got that same look.” Tony twisted his face. “You know the one, like you’re begging for someone even bigger to put you in your place. Your mother must have spent a lot of time washing blood off your clothes when you were growing up.”

Bruce gasped but tried to do it silently. Tony was talking to Steve; Tony wasn’t talking to him. Tony knew nothing about Bruce’s mother. No one was talking to him. He needed to stay quiet and not be seen. 

“I’m sure you would know,” Steve agreed, his voice a pleasant steel. “Once a bully always a bully. And if you’re not big enough to do the job, you invent a robot that is.”

Tony rolled his eyes, with more attitude that Bruce had ever seen from someone with greying hair wearing a tight band t-shirt. “Brain before brawn, dear. Look, do what you want. Pepper’s going to a conference in Paris, and I’m going to meet her there. Bruce can stay as long as he wants. You’re Bruce’s guests, so you can stay as long as he wants. I’ll come back when the parts are in. Hopefully no one does anything stupid in the meantime, but as long as I don’t have to watch it, I guess I really don’t care.”

Bruce glanced over at Natasha, who hadn’t paused in her inspection of the gun. He never knew how she’d respond in a fight, and the uncertainty made him more vigilant. He scratched the back of his head, trying to wake up the numb feeling that had spread all the way from the crown of his head to the tips of his fingers. If he didn’t force himself to move, he felt like he’d be frozen indefinitely. 

“Tony,” he started, cajolingly. 

“It’s fine,” Tony snapped as he stomped out of the room.

Bucky was sitting so still that Bruce had almost forgotten he was still in the room. He stood up.

“Do you want crutches?” Bruce asked, but Bucky was already walking away.

Steve rubbed his forehead. From underneath his hand he watched Bucky go. “Did he get anyone?” Steve asked quietly.

Bruce opened his mouth before he realized that Steve was speaking to Natasha. 

“Not that I could see,” Natasha said. “I think he was just shooting at shadows.”

Steve nodded. Bruce noticed that his shirt had come untucked and was rucked up at the back. Someone needed to smooth it back into place. 

“It might have been from seeing me,” Natasha said.

“No,” Steve said.

“He might have remembered–”

“No,” Steve interrupted. “He thought he saw something yesterday. He always – he thinks he sees things.” It looked like he was going to say more, but instead he just nodded to himself. “It’s good you’re here,” he told Natasha and then left the room. Bruce watched him leave. He would be going to check on Bucky now, to make sure he was alright.

It was just Bruce and Natasha now.

“I bet you’re just thrilled to see me,” Natasha said.

“I’m not, I don’t, it’s not,” Bruce stuttered. 

“Sure thing,” Natasha said. 

“I never wanted to hurt you,” said Bruce, wishing for a minute that she could see the irony in that. She was the one who forced him to change into the other guy, which increased the risk of her getting hurt, actually physically hurt, exponentially. 

Natasha clicked the last piece of the gun into place. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, as she walked away. She held the gun in one hand but somehow it was the least threatening thing about her. Bruce watched her go in silence. 

\--

Bucky was out of kiwis, and Sam thought it might be a good idea for him to take a trip to pick up more from the store. It took all morning for them to work up to leaving. Steve wanted to come, but he was pretending like he didn’t. Bruce hovered. He wondered if he should offer to come along but, if something went wrong, the other guy would just escalate the situation. Natasha said she also wanted them to get her sauerkraut and frozen strawberries, in that jovial way she had that gave nothing away.

Steve pretended not to watch Sam and Bucky leave, but Bruce found him standing with Natasha just down the hall from the door, both of their heads bent over some kind of receiver. 

“You’ve got the signal?” Steve asked.

“Yes, for the thousandth time, yes. I’ve got front row seats to Sam’s one man play about the virtues of street pretzels. We have to be careful, Steve. He might bore Bucky back into compliance.”

“Not funny,” Steve said. “Now go, make sure nothing happens. And don’t let them–”

Natasha rolled her eyes all the way up in her head until only the whites were showing. 

“Okay, okay, you know,” Steve said.

“I’m not _new_ ,” said Natasha. “No one sees me unless I want them to.”

When Natasha left, Bruce fell into step beside Steve. 

“They’ll be back soon,” Bruce said. 

Steve nodded. His jaw was tight and right at Bruce’s eye level. 

“You don’t, I mean. Are you sure? That he’s not dangerous.” Bruce asked. It was hard for Bruce to assess threat these days. He changed into the other guy over a stubbed toe but stayed calm through the early stages of an alien attack. Bucky was an unknown, but Steve’s opinion meant something; he knew what he could protect all of them against. 

Steve looked sideways. Bruce thought he might slow, but he maintained his stride. 

“What is it you imagine they’ve done to him that could make him a threat to the Hulk?”

“I didn’t–” Bruce stuttered. He already knew that, of course he did. 

They were at the fork where the hall split between the labs and the gym. “You’ll be fine,” Steve said. He clasped his hand on Bruce’s shoulder before walking away. Bruce could feel the touch all the way down to his knees. Steve didn’t think Bucky was a threat because he thought Bruce was a greater one. 

The spike of anger didn’t come until long minutes after Steve had left, but when it did it was like an ice pick to the stomach. It was the kind of anger that made Bruce do stupid things: talk back, _I didn’t break the plate_ , refuse to step down, right until the moment when his Dad came at him fist first. 

Bruce never remembered being hit, not really, spent days afterward discovering new bruises. The purple on his thigh was from being pushed by his father into the table maybe. Or it was from when he walked into his open dresser drawer: his own fault. His body didn’t know the difference. His leg was far away from the quiet bubble inside of his head where he lived back then. It was smooth and silver and there were no cracks; no way for anyone else to get in. He had no legs in the bubble, no body. His body was where the anger lived. He needed to stay far, far away from there. His anger brought more anger, made everything worse. 

The same was true now. He felt the other guy simmering closer and closer to the surface. The almost unstoppable urge to put his fist through the wall, into the cabinet, to _smash_.

Before he could force himself to move again, Natasha appeared. She was so silent that it was like she had always been there.

“Ouch,” she said. 

“I thought you were playing look out.”

“I’m giving them a head start.” She pulled her hair away to show the comm in her ear. “They’re both bugged.”

“Do they know that?” Bruce asked. 

“So,” she said, ignoring his question. “Steve, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess he’s, um, he’s pretty worried.”

“So you and Steve,” Natasha said. “That’s new for you.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” Bruce said, and then immediately regretted it. 

“Doctor Banner,” Natasha said in that playful way that always made him feel like he was being mocked. 

“Just – stop,” he said, “please,” and rubbed his face.

She tilted her head to the side, the tips of her hair lifting off her neck. “You’re scared of me.”

“I’m not,” Bruce said quickly. 

“You’ve always been afraid of me,” Natasha said. “I couldn’t tell what it was at first. I thought you were just shy.”

“I’m afraid of myself,” Bruce said, voice rising louder than he meant it to be. “I _told_ –” he clears his throat and forces himself to speak softer. “I told you that.”

“You told me a lot of things,” Natasha said. “I guess I was wrong about which ones to believe.”

“Oh, don’t,” Bruce said. He wanted to pace but he forced himself to stand still. “I was just an easy target. You pretend – half the time I think you just wanted me close for, for _him_. As insurance. You always bring the gun to the knife fight.”

“And you’re the biggest, greenest gun there is.”

“You loved me because I’m a monster,” Bruce said. “There’s nothing threatening about a mirror.”

“I didn’t love you because you’re a monster,” Natasha said. She was so pretty, even now. Nothing showed in her face; her skin was like melted wax. “That’s the one thing you’ve always been right about. No one could ever love you.” 

She looked over his shoulder. It had felt like there was no one but the two of them in the entire world, but suddenly Bruce was aware of Steve, way down at the other end of the hall, talking with one of the weapons specialists. 

“You weren’t an easy target, but he is.” She looked back at Bruce, and he realized every single lingering look he’d tried to pass off as scientific curiosity had been exactly as obvious as he had feared. 

Natasha smiled, and Bruce could imagine how terrifying she’d been at twelve or eight or however old she was when they first handed her a gun and told her to kill. “I think I’m going to sit on his face.”

Bruce blinked furiously, momentarily afraid that he was going to turn into the other guy until he realized that wasn’t what the terrible prickling in his eyes was. He looked away.

“Great talking with you,” Natasha said. He’d heard her say that before, strutting away from the latest mark who had given everything away without even putting up a fight. He stared at the floor unblinking until his eyes dried and then he walked back to the lab.

He didn’t hear Sam and Bucky come back, which he assumed meant that everything was fine. It was fine or it wasn’t. There was nothing he could do to help. 

\--

Bruce passed Steve and Natasha walking down the hall. They were discussing floor exercises and didn’t pause their conversation. Both smiled at him. There was nothing similar about the expressions on their faces. Bruce kept walking. 

That night in bed he stared at the ceiling. He imagined it. Steve’s hands running up Natasha’s thighs, his face buried between them. Or maybe she’d pin his hands down with her calves. The musky, suffocating wetness of her cunt. Bruce was underneath her, and she was rocking on his tongue, and Steve’s hot mouth was on his cock instead. He was surrounded and, no. He was gone. Natasha was cupping her breasts as she ground onto Steve’s face. They were perfect and perfect together. The easy control they had over their bodies. Skin and muscle and power and grace and Bruce was alone.

He took his hand off his cock and rolled onto his side, tugging his pjs back up. He was still hard, but that was nothing compared to the nauseating waves of loneliness. 

\--

In the morning, Bruce walked in on Clint restringing his bow in the main living space. Clint said nothing, just whistled quietly under his breath. Bruce got coffee from the kitchen and, when he walked back, Clint was holding an arrow, twisting it between his fingers. He lifted it and squinted one eye shut, like he was trying to aim. It was pointed right at Bruce. Clint didn’t stop whistling.

“It wouldn’t even leave a dent,” Bruce said.

“I’ve got others,” Clint said. “Want to find out?”

“I told her I was sorry,” Bruce said.

Clint laughed out loud. “Oh, you’re sorry. Right, it’s all okay then.” He spun the arrow between two fingers and then caught it, neatly tucking it back into his quiver. “You don’t know sorry.”

“You’re wrong about that, my friend,” Bruce said, and walked away from Clint and toward the lab. His hand was shaking and it wasn’t until he was sitting in front of the computer, staring blankly at the still-black screen, that he realized he had cracked the ceramic mug in his hand. The pieces still held together, but there was a long line cutting through the red glazing. 

He went down to the gym to try to work it out on the treadmill. Steve was already there, his loose sweats somehow revealing more than Bruce’s narrower legged trackpants. He didn’t mean to watch, but the glazing in front of Bruce’s treadmill reflected the track lighting and Steve’s figure was obvious in the reflection. He whaled on the punching bag but somehow the sound of the impact was still so muted, like a little sigh. Steve made more noise than the bag, throwing his whole body into each hit. 

Bruce finished before Steve did. As he walked past him, Steve kept dancing around the bag, but his eyes followed Bruce. If Bruce could see him, did that also mean he could see Bruce? Bruce used the towel he had draped over his neck to blot at his flushed cheeks and pretended the heat was just from the workout. 

He made eye contact with Steve and waited for him to say something, but Steve just stared back. The moment went on for too long and Bruce realized that his gaze had wandered and he was now watching Steve’s bicep flex under the clinging material of his t-shirt. He looked back up at Steve’s face quickly. Steve kept hitting the bag. He never looked away from Bruce until finally Bruce couldn’t stand it anymore and he had to walk away. 

Tony came back that afternoon on word that the rest of the parts had arrived. 

“How was Paris?” Bruce asked. The two of them were in the lab, assembling the neuroimaging device. 

“We had a _poire belle Hélène_ that made Pepper cry, it was so good.”

“Hmm,” Bruce said. “Are we really sure about the gamma ray emitting radioisotopes? What if we use a radioactive isotope instead?”

“Oh, don’t be a baby. One time you turn yourself into a mutant and suddenly all gamma rays are bad.”

Bruce stared at Tony, who just raised his shoulders. “What?”

“Fine,” Bruce said. “Can you pass me that tracer?”

They worked in silence for a while.

Finally Tony said, “It wasn’t Pepper who cried.”

“Oh, obviously,” said Bruce. “What do you want to use to counter the anisotropic conductivities?”

They didn’t leave the lab until the early hours of the morning. It felt good to be working. The frustrations were small and normal and meant to be solved. Tony’s chatter was nonthreatening. 

The calm vanished instantly when he found Steve leaning against his door.

“Almost done,” Bruce said when Steve didn’t speak first. “We’ll be able to check him out tomorrow.”

“Good,” Steve said, curtly. 

“Um, do you want to come in?” Bruce said. He didn’t lock his suite, but Steve waited to be invited before following him in. Bruce’s suite was one of the larger ones: a sitting area, a small room for his office. There was a minibar, but Bruce didn’t keep it stocked. 

“Do you want – I think I’ve got a water bottle. Or we can go to the kitchen.”

Steve looked at him with an intensity that made it feel like his ribcage was unfurling. 

Bruce felt his palms go clammy. “Did Natasha say–”

“No,” Steve said. He took a step closer to Bruce. “Tell me if I’ve got this wrong.”

He touched Bruce’s shoulder. “What should I–” Bruce stammered, even though it was obvious what Steve was about to do. Steve pressed their mouths together, a kindness, and Bruce stopped talking. He ran his fingertips along the edge of Steve’s jaw: it felt just as sharp as it looked.

Bruce opened his mouth and felt Steve’s tongue, wet and inexplicably surprising. Every moment they were kissing he expected to be the last, but Steve showed no signs of stopping. He reached to pull Bruce closer by the hips. It was awkward, a little, neither of them used to being touched. Bruce held his body at too great a distance then fell against Steve’s chest when he stumbled forward. Steve was steady as a wall and he slide his tongue into Bruce’s mouth while Bruce found his footing. 

He kissed hard, fingers digging into Bruce’s hips almost to the point of pain. It took Bruce a long minute to clear his head enough to realize that he was feeling overwhelmed, but when he did he took the kiss down a notch. He swept his tongue against Steve’s, gentle, cupped his hand to Steve’s cheek and pulled back until their lips were still touching but mouths were no longer mashed together. 

Steve pushed against his hand, opened his mouth and drew Bruce into another devouring kiss until it felt like they had burned through all the oxygen in the room. When Bruce tried to ease it up, Steve pulled back in frustration.

“Can you do this?” Steve asked.

“This… sex?” Bruce asked.

Steve nodded, his jaw tense.

“I – yes, I think so.” His control was better now. He almost never changed when he didn’t want to. 

“Then don’t be a tease,” Steve said.

 _You’re not supposed to talk like that anymore,_ Bruce thought dumbly as Steve started undoing his pants.

“Maybe I should–” Bruce said, and then helped Steve undress instead. Bruce had seen the posters, he already knew about the width of Steve’s shoulders, but still he couldn’t stop himself from running reverent hands down Steve’s torso. 

“Just get to it,” Steve said, catching one of Bruce’s wrists and pushing it further down. 

Bruce felt out the length of his cock before licking his palm wet. Steve hissed at his tight grip and rode into his hand. Bruce twisted his over the head of Steve’s cock, dragging his thumb down the slit until he hit foreskin, then sliding that down in the circle of his fingers.

“Can you – more wet,” Steve said, so Bruce dropped to his knees. 

Bruce hadn’t touched another cock since college, but he still remembered how to give a blowjob. The button of his pants was already undone. He pulled his dick out and jerked himself off while he sucked Steve, partly because he had a notion that it was easier for him to keep control when he’s the one being active during sex but mostly just because he couldn’t wait. He wondered how many times Steve had done this, how many people had gotten to suck Captain America’s cock. He felt embarrassed just thinking it, but it made his dick leak. It was a desperate thought, and desperate was a small step away from out of control. Riding that line was thrilling. He came well before Steve did.

Steve kept his hands at his sides, but he warned Bruce before he came. Bruce remembered spending a lot of time considering the merits of spitting or swallowing when he was in college, but now he swallowed without thinking about it. 

“Thanks,” Steve said, breathing already calmed. “I needed that.” He was still naked save his socks, and Bruce realized that had been a little excessive just to suck the guy off. 

“Anything you need?” Steve asked, glancing down at Bruce’s crotch. 

“I’m good,” Bruce said. He watched as Steve dressed himself, golden skin disappearing systematically. Bruce was already dressed, and he had nothing to do with his hands. “I didn’t know this was something you did.”

“Any port in a storm, right?”

“Right,” Bruce echoed lightly, but his voice gave something away because before leaving, Steve came over to give him another sweet kiss. It was light, chaste. Clearly meant to say goodnight.

As he tried to fall asleep, Bruce wondered again what had given him away. Had he been caught staring? Had Natasha said something? He wasn’t sure which was worse. He tried to take Steve at his word. It might have been his normal during wartime. Bruce wondered if Steve still thought they were at war now. 

He imagined what would have happened if he told Steve he needed – something. He didn’t know what he would say; maybe he’d let Steve choose. In the light of the day it would seem reckless, but alone, under the covers, it made him feel the good kind of crazy. He got off again to the idea of Steve telling him what he needed. Steve keeping him safe, keeping them both safe. In the dark he could almost convince himself that was how it would go. 

\--

They finished the neuroimager in the early afternoon, gave Bucky the head’s up, and had lunch while he got himself into that weird, catatonic ex-assassin headspace. Bruce ate a roast beef sandwich on rye. 

“What do you think we’re going to see?” Tony asked, holding his sandwich in front of his mouth to cover his lips. They were the only two in the room.

“I don’t know,” Bruce said. “Do you think Steve’s right?”

“I sure hate it when he is.”

“So we’re hoping for–”

“Ugh,” Tony said. “Obviously not the one where we’ve got a cold-blooded killer living in the tower. I don’t like being right _that_ much.”

“I think that’s already true either way you slice it.”

“Aww, don’t say that,” Tony said. “Your blood’s hotter than normal. It’s not cold at all.”

“I didn’t just mean me,” Bruce grumbled, even though he had.

“ _Me_?” Tony asked, pointing at his chest. “Never mind, let’s get this over with.”

They rigged up a testing lab inside the larger lab with a mic in case they had to talk with Bucky while the scanner was on. They had built the room to contain any of the gamma rays but it had the added benefit of containing Bucky, who looked increasingly agitated as the scan went on. 

“How much longer?” he asked at the fifteen-minute mark.

“Stop moving,” Tony said.

“You’re almost done,” said Bruce. 

“This is taking too long,” complained Steve. 

“Sorry about that,” Tony said. “In the two days we had to invent completely new technology, we only managed to double the efficiency of existing tech. We really dialed it in for this one.”

“Just do the scan,” Steve said, and left to walk a brisk lap around the office. He passed by the testing area and gave Bucky a thumbs up through the window. 

By the time he came back, the imaging was done.

“What does it show?” Steve asked.

“It doesn’t – it’s not –” Bruce closed his mouth and stared at the scan a while longer. 

“It doesn’t look like any brain we’ve ever seen before,” Tony said.

“What do you know anyway?” Steve asked. “You’re not even medical doctors.”

“Oh, suddenly you remember that, do you?” Tony snapped.

“The brain is malleable,” Bruce said. “I think – it looks like they burnt out some of the sections and now new connections have formed around the damage.”

“So that’s good.”

Bruce shrugged his shoulder. “Maybe. I mean, see all these red areas. It’s lit up; he’s thinking. His brain is working, we just don’t really know what it means.”

“It means he’s healing,” Steve said, and if the finality in his voice wasn’t enough to shut down any argument, he also turned on his heel and marched across the lab.

“This much activity,” Tony said. “It’s trauma. He shouldn’t be lit up this much.”

“I know,” Bruce said. They watched from the window as Steve strode into the room and helped Bucky out of the scanner. The microphone in the room was on, and they could hear him: “It’s okay, Buck, you’re all good. Dumb as a rock, just like we expected.”

“Should we do yours next?” Tony asked.

“Please, after you. I insist,” Bruce said. 

Tony humphed. “Well that’s that then,” he said, and turned off the power.

\--

Bruce ran into Steve dragging a duffle bag into the main room.

“You’re leaving,” Bruce asked. Even to his own ears he sounded shocked, whiney. 

“Now that we’ve got the all clear.” Steve nodded. “Sam thinks it would be good for Bucky to be somewhere quieter. Natasha’s got a place in Dallas.”

“Dallas?”

“I don’t ask,” Steve said.

“But you’re leaving.” 

“I asked for help, and we got it. I’m grateful, Bruce. But we can’t stay here.”

“What would you have done if the scan had gone differently? You brought him here on purpose,” Bruce said, slowly putting the pieces together. “In case you needed backup.”

“You always have a Plan B,” Steve said. “I don’t care what the mission is, you always have a backup. But I was right. He’s okay.”

“He’s not okay,” Bruce said. “Nobody told you that.”

“They did things to him,” Steve said. 

“I didn’t say it’s his fault. I’m just saying that it – that he didn’t show the same functionality that you would expect in a normal brain.”

“And what would we see if we looked at your brain?” Steve asked. “What’s inside the head of the great Doctor Banner?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“No?” Steve asked. “This isn’t another example of you and Tony doing science that neither of you understand?” 

“What if something had gone wrong? You really think I’m a person who could be around for that? It would have escalated so quickly.”

“No one will ever fear you as much as you fear yourself,” Steve said. 

“You don’t _know_ ,” Bruce said. He could feel the fury rising but he tried to breath around it. “Me … you, any of us. If we go wrong, there aren’t the normal checks and balances to stop us. Haven’t you ever thought about that?”

“I’m not afraid of what I’m capable of,” Steve said. “I’m afraid of being helpless.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” Bruce said, the tension in his chest making his voice come out roughly. He couldn’t breathe. It was like his whole ribcage was twisting. Other than the anger, it was the only thing he could feel. 

“You’re so–” Steve gestured abstractly. “You have to move past it. I don’t get you. You act like you’re the only person who ever got hit. That was a lot of us. You get bigger, and you learn to fight back.”

Bruce couldn’t stop himself from recoiling. He could hardly recognize his own voice when he said, “You didn’t learn. Someone _made_ you.”

“Someone made _you_ ,” Steve said. “You. You’re the one who did this to yourself.”

Bruce opened his mouth, force himself to shut it again. He blinked, but he couldn’t get his vision to clear, everything going hazy. 

Steve was standing there. Bruce needed to get away. He turned but there was just a wall and a bank of windows. He looked back at Steve, whose face was twisted, ugly. Bruce could dive out the window, but he didn’t, the anger rising in waves like the tide. If he dove out the window, he wouldn’t hurt Steve. Steve, with the dull flush spreading down his cheeks, the cords of his neck standing out, the sharp flex of his tense jaw. Why wasn’t he leaving? He was the one who caused this, he wouldn’t shut up, he would never shut up, he needed to shut up. Someone should make him shut up. 

That was the other guy, Bruce knew, but his voice was loud and he could no longer keep the thoughts straight. The Hulk’s anger, his own, the room trembling, crashing around him, or – he was crashing, the table splintering under the force of his fist, the chair thrown and shattering against the wall. The anger rose, so sharp it was almost a relief, just the anger, nothing else, and then the blackness.

\--

Bruce opened his eyes, looking down at his clenched hands. There was that smell, but he couldn’t remember why it was familiar. Like dust, but cleaner and dirtier at the same time. He looked up. The room was trashed. A stool turned into kindling after being splintered against the wall, bookshelf overturned, metal table cracked in half. Steve was sitting on the floor, his knees pulled up to his chest. He was resting his chin in his palm and it wasn’t until he noticed that Bruce was awake and lowered his hand that Bruce realized he was bleeding.

“Your face,” Bruce said. He was naked and sitting on some kind of debris. It dug in and probably would have been painful if he wasn’t so far away from his body right now.

“It was my fault,” Steve said. “Didn’t get away in time.”

“You have to fucking run.”

“I thought–” Steve stopped himself. 

“You always have to run,” Bruce said. Steve’s lip was bleeding and there was a pink flush across his jaw that looked like the early signs of deep bruising. It was painful to look at, and Bruce was incensed. Why had Steve let that happen? He should have protected himself. Bruce warned them and he warned them; it’s like they wanted him to hurt them. 

“It’s okay,” Steve said, watching Bruce warily. Was he scared of Bruce in general, or was it specifically that Bruce had started to look green again? Bruce took a breath. His heartrate was within normal limits. He took another breath. Steve’s look changed to one of sympathy. Bruce breathed again.

“You need ice,” Bruce said.

Steve nodded, but made no move to leave.

“Can you just – Tony should look at your face.”

“Yeah.”

Bruce covered his eyes with his hand. Steve was still right there, and Bruce couldn’t stand to look at him. The purpling streak across his jaw, the smear of dark blood all the way down to the curve of his chin. His hair was ruffled and there was a rip on the shoulder of his t-shirt. Bruce couldn’t remember hurting him. He wondered how much of Tony’s tower he had trashed.

“You should get some ice,” Bruce said again. He felt so ashamed that being naked on top of it didn’t even factor in. “Why are you still here?” His voice cracked terribly, and it had to be obvious that he was close to tears. He didn’t remember what happened; he did remember wanting to hurt Steve. “I’m sorry, please, just get some ice.”

“I think you think,” Steve said, “that you’re the only one who’s angry.”

Bruce closed his eyes and kept them shut until finally he heard Steve walk away. When he looked around, he realized he was down in the lab. He must have chased Steve in here, or maybe the other guy had lurched over here himself. The room was trashed, but not as bad as it could have been. The neuroimager was still upright, barely, the base cracked in two. 

Bruce gave it a little shove and watch as it smashed on the floor. 

 

 

 

 _move with the times or they'll leave you behind, you are your own worst enemy_.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [disarmd](http://disarmd.tumblr.com/).


End file.
